Output details
30 - History
University of Winchester
Custom and Popular Memory in the Forest of Dean, c.1550-1832
This monograph forces a re-evaluation of several narratives of social and economic change in pre-modern England. It challenges preconceptions of literate mentalities and leadership of resistance in traditional industries opposed to burgeoning state-sponsored capital interests. The study examines the influence of equity courts on local legal cultures and notions of custom, through an extensive analysis of Exchequer court depositions, bills and answers for the Forest of Dean between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The book forms the first systematic treatment of this unparalleled body of material, particularly the bills and answers, hitherto unexplored in the context of state growth.